Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Third Time's a Charm

Remember my twice-failed Dijon-Pecan Seitan recipe? I had a vision of creating a pecan-encrusted, dijon-flavored faux meat for my cookbook a few months ago, but I kept getting it all wrong. First, it started as a fried Dijon-Pecan Tofu, but the tofu texture was too light for the heavy pecan topping. Then, I used the pecan and mustard breading on seitan, but the wheat meat soaked up too much grease in the frying process.

So I decided to change the breading up a bit and bake the stuff. Now I give you Dijon-Pecan Seitan with a Maple-Butter Glaze:

By golly, I've finally done it. This variation is definiately a keeper. The seitan is breaded in a dijon-pecan batter, baked, and then rolled in a maple-soy margarine glaze. It has the sweetness of a honey mustard with the delightful crunch of toasted pecans.

I served the seitan with Orange-Ginger Beets from The Complete Vegan Kitchen:

I can't believe I used to hate beets! I mean, as recently as a few months ago. Beets have been the final frontier for me. After I went vegan, I learned to like every vegetable I used to hate in my lacto-ovo days ... except beets. They always tasted like dirt. Ick! But apparently, you just gotta know how to cook 'em. Now I love them roasted, in borscht, or boiled and seasoned using the above recipe which accents beets' earthy flavors with fresh ginger and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

Here's the whole plate. I also opened a jar of my Granny's home-canned green beans:

That sounds so good. Just out of curiosity, what seitan recipe do you use? Everything looks delicious. My final frontier for veggies was brussel sprouts. I'm almost over the issues I have with them. Hope your book is out soon.

your dijon-pecan seitan with the maple-butter glaze sounds heavenly - and looks ever-so scrumptious! i'm a beet girl & yours look deeeelish! i can't believe i used to not like them either! glad i finally came to my senses! ;)

home-canned green beans?! your Granny ROCKS! man, i wish i were having this all for dinner tonight! mmmmmmmm!

yummmm! is this dijon-pecan seitan going to be a tester recipe perchance? ;)also, i just came from a meal at my dining hall, and they have an all vegan bar, which is awesome! and i just had a beat/green pea vegenaise salad there, and of course the veganaise saucy part turned baby pink and everyone at my table was like ewwwwww what is that haha but it was delicious!

I came over from Avery's blog. You are so right about certain vegetables being delicious when you learn to cook them in a way you like. This meal looks fantastic, and wow, topped off with your Granny's beans, what more could you want?

My name is Bianca ...

About Me

I'm a 9-year vegan, 19-year vegetarian from the Mid-South, not too far from the muddy banks of the Mississippi River. And that means cornbread, butter beans, and collard greens.
These days, I live in Memphis. Check out my cookbook — Cookin' Crunk. It's filled with yummilicious veganized soul food and country classics.